


Magic is Might (But wishes are only granted in fairy tales)

by GMRivers



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Assassination Plot(s), Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Conspiracy, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Leadership, Minor Original Character(s), Near Death Experiences, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), POV Alternating, POV Original Character, Panic Attacks, Plot Twists, Politics, Wizengamot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-12-31 21:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18322589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GMRivers/pseuds/GMRivers
Summary: A teenager is dumped into another world, one which she finds exceedingly familiar. However, not everyone can abandon everything they hold dear, and not everything is as it seems.Forget every story where the protagonist becomes Harry's BFF, put aside every "random-character has a sister" story, the world does not revolve around a single kid, the universe doesn't have a greater plan, and life isn't always easy.Some gifts are curses in disguise, some curses are gifts that have yet to be discovered, but wishes are only granted in fairy tales, and life is hardly so lenient.





	1. By silver streams

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I have other stories I should be focusing on, but this is a little something that's been nagging me lately. I have read dozens of stories where someone from our world ends up in a fictional world, most of them are crap, but a few precious exceptions carved themselves a place in my heart. This is my own attempt at the popular trope, except things will go a little different than usual. 
> 
> If you want to read about a girl who becomes Harry's best friend and helps him through his troubles with her knowledge from the "future" as she fights an internal battle between returning home and embracing her one true love, then this is not the story you are looking for. There will be death, there will be violence, there will be politics, and there will be a lot of morally ambiguous stuff floating around. I like fairy tales, sure, but this story isn't going to be one. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it.  
> -GMR

> "Night is now falling  
>  So ends this day  
>  The road is now calling  
>  And I must away  
>  Over hill and under tree  
>  Through lands where never light has shone  
>  By silver streams that run down to the sea"
> 
> -Billy Boyd, _The Last Goodbye_
> 
> * * *
> 
>  
> 
> Andrea turned off her music, packing her headphones away as the flight attendant explained the emergency procedures. It wasn’t exactly something she had never heard before, but she paid attention nonetheless, as she had since she was a child. Who knew? There might be some extra piece of information, or a change in the procedure, or it might serve as a useful reminder if something actually happened. 
> 
> She used to be fascinated as a kid, reading the pamphlets over and over again, excitedly rattling off all of the new information to her parents. Her mom would smile encouragingly and her dad would then explain a hundred and one things about the airplane. The engines, the cockpit, the windows, it was all fair game, and her dad knew it all. This time, though, her parents weren’t with her. It wasn’t her first time alone on a plane, but it was her first time alone flying internationally. It was exciting, in a way, it tasted like freedom. She couldn’t wait until she was old enough to travel on her own, or with her friends. This time, she had been with her dad, accompanying him on a business trip and taking advantage of the fact that she was on break from school. Sadly enough, she now had to go back home as she was starting finals in a few days and had to study. Her dad, on the other hand, would stay in the UK for another two weeks. She wished she could stay with him for a few more days, but she also couldn’t deny that she missed her mom and her siblings, who couldn’t come because of school.
> 
> She sent a quick smile to the older girl sitting beside her, but the pretty redhead didn’t seem to notice, absorbed into what seemed like homework. So it was that she settled comfortably in her seat, awaiting the moment when she’d see her mom, brother and sister. She was planning on enjoying the flight, a book in her hand and her favorite music ready to play at a second’s notice. In fact, she was doing just that, reading one of her favorite parts, when the universe seemed to decide that her plans weren’t exciting enough. 
> 
> The turbulence was enough to merit a small frown, but nothing more than that. Then came the sparks, and with them the panic. The sudden silence however was decidedly unnerving. Planes weren’t supposed to be silent. People started screaming, everything seemed to tip to the side, the world outside the window started spinning. The few people that had been standing were flung like ragdolls. She looked away before she could see what happened to them. The world seemed to freeze and run on fast forward at the same time, seconds stretched into infinity and crammed into the space of a single breath. It was timeless in a way, a distant part of her mind noting that beauty could be found in the most horrible of places. Images flew to her mind, of the plane burning, ripping apart at the seams, crashing unforgivingly against the ground. Her breath started coming faster, ragged. Andrea felt like she was choking, drowning actually, like the time she got dragged down by a wave and hit her head on the ocean floor. Struggling to figure out the right way up, to hold her breath long enough, to keep calm even as she struggled to come up and  _ breathe _ . The hold of the sea unrelenting, cruel, yet unfeeling, uncaring, inhuman. The mad scramble to get her feet underneath her. The dull thud of collision echoing in her ears, even if it was silent to all but her. The sudden dawning that  _ this might be it.  _ And the urge to fight it.
> 
> She could hear screaming, sobbing and praying, voices raised and mumbled, german, english, french, korean, spanish and other languages she couldn’t identify forming a cacophony of horror and panic that swallowed her whole. The same realization dawning upon her. Her mind went to the prayers she had learnt at school, and the ones her mom repeated every night, her panicked brain mixing them up until she was mumbling a nonsensical composition of latin, english and spanish. Words, sounds, images, it all blurred together. She could almost feel her mother’s gentle arms around her, her father’s secure embrace, her little sister’s unrelenting grasp, her big brother’s reassuring hold, she could hear their voices, see their faces. She felt suddenly, unbelievably sad. Then someone grabbed her arm.
> 
> She looked up, tears blurring her vision, barely aware that the grasping hand belonged to the girl sitting beside her. The older girl had her eyes closed, but her lips were moving in a continuous flow of words that went unheard amongst the existing clamor. Her grip tightened, turning almost painful, but Andrea had no time to focus on it as half the plane suddenly got ripped apart violently in a burst of flames and incredible pressure. In a single second, she felt the heat and cold as they played at her back , as the wind tore at her skin, as her limbs felt crushed, and her lungs didn’t fare much better, as her throat clamped up and a pair of bright green eyes snapped open, staring at her for the last time as her world went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a fairly short chapter, just a little taste to introduce the story. Please tell me what you think of it in the comments down below, any criticism is appreciated.   
> Thanks for reading!  
> -GMR


	2. Paths that lead home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Andrea finds herself lost.

Andrea didn’t know what had happened. One moment she was certain she was going to die, it had been obvious, expected really. And then she didn't die. Instead, she found herself in a subway cart, one hand gripping her backpack to her chest in a death-grip, the other clenched tightly and shaking slightly. One moment, fiery death, she blinked, and there was a perfectly ordinary woman seated across from her, a little girl playing with her sister to her left, and a businessman reading the paper to her right. She saw all this, and she heard it and she felt it. She saw it in the grim set of the man’s shoulders, and the calm poise of the woman, and she saw it all the more in the wide grins from the girls. She heard it on the roar of the moving train, and the rustling of newspaper, and the sister’s happy giggles. She felt it on the sturdy fabric of her backpack, and the seat trembling beneath her, and the little girls hand grazing her leg as she gestured a little too excitedly at her sister. Yes, she could see what was happening, hear it, touch it, even smell it, but none of this could return any sense of order to her mind.

Eventually, the constant roar of the subway slowed to a stop, a recording droning on reminding everyone to ‘mind the gap’. She looked at the sign with the word ‘Stratford’ displayed clearly, her brain refusing to reconcile this image with the chaos ruling her life just moments prior. Still, she stood, and walked and exchanged mindless apologies when she inevitably bumped into someone. All in all, she got out of the train as if in a dream. It seemed to her that one moment she was sitting, and the next thing she knew she was standing outside the subway station, staring at the world around her.  

_ ‘They are calm’ _ was what she thought. Everybody was calm, from the man in a suit rushing by to the teenaged girls gossiping as they walked. There were children chasing each other, serious looking people speaking with each other, mothers trying to reign in their kids, a man selling ice cream, a woman selling chips, a couple holding hands. ‘ _ How can they be calm?’ _

For a moment, she thought something was wrong with the world. That it ought to be consumed by fire, and turn to ash as it burned, the murmur of voices replaced by screams. But it wasn’t. There was no desperation, there was peace. There was no death, there was life. It seemed like such an odd idea to her addled mind. Later, she would look back at this moment and find it ironic that she would wish such destruction as a result from her shock. At the moment, however, she could barely process what was going on around her and wouldn’t find irony in anything if it slapped her in the face. 

She stood there for a while, maybe seconds, maybe hours, she honestly couldn’t tell. The ice cream cart was still open so she thought it couldn’t have been that long, and the sun was still up, though she wouldn’t have known if it had moved at all. It was then that her thoughts took her in the only logical direction she would accept. ‘ _ Safety.’  _ They said. _ ‘Dad.’  _ Her heart replied. And so she walked.

She wasn't sure where her dad had been working that day, but even if she was, there was no way anyone would let her go into the building, not beyond the lobby anyway. She did however, know her dad’s culinary taste. It was inevitable then that he had developed a particular love for a small cafe that sold, in his words, ‘good, delicious coffee’. She went in and scanned the place but saw no sign of him. She asked the young woman working there and she denied having seen a man that fit her father’s description. And so she sat down, ordered a latte and waited. When her third cup ran empty and there was still no sign of him, she stood to leave, pausing only to pay for her coffee and ask one last time if someone had seen him. The waitress then suggested that she might try calling on the phone and pointed her to a phone booth near the cafe. At the moment, Andrea felt sharp relief blossom in her chest. 

Once she got to the phone booth she realized she should have used her cell phone ages ago. In a flash, she had it out, dialing as fast as the touch screen allowed. Nothing happened. She tried again, and again there was nothing. For a moment, panic almost choked the breath out of her, but then she saw the problem: no signal. Logically, the next she did was reach for a few coins and try the phone booth. When she called her dad, nothing happened. She called again: nothing. For a third time she called, panic rising once more as  _ nothing happened _ . However, her thoughts saved her once more as they focused on something new.  _ ‘I have a problem’  _ They said, and her heart answered: ‘ _ Mom’.  _

She could have cried with relief when she heard the call connect, but it was quickly cut short when it was answered by a stranger.  _ ‘I must have dialed wrong’ _ she thought, even as her head told her she hadn’t. So she called again, and again the stranger answered, and again she apologized. But her words were empty, as her mind plunged into a frenzy. Panic threatened at her throat, fear bubbled in her stomach. The next few minutes were a delirium of coins and calls and dread. Number after number she went through friends and families, number after number finding somebody else or no one at all. Number, after number, after number, until she had no coins left. She expected tears, grief, pain, any reaction to this increasing feeling of  _ lost _ . She felt none of this things. 

Absentmindedly, she made her way out of the phone booth, just standing there. Then an old lady with a kind face startled her by placing a hand on her shoulder softly. "Are you alright dear?" She asked with a politely concerned frown. 

"Oh, yes, thank you." Andrea answered with a brief smile. Too brief, it seemed, for the woman only frowned further. 

"If you're sure…" The old lady trailed off, suddenly interrupted by a little girl, previously hidden behind her grandmother. 

"Why are you sad? You should smile more." The little girl said, and Andrea forced another, admittedly weak, smile. Even as the woman told her off for prying.

"I just had a phone call that was a bit upsetting, is all." 

The little girl tilted her head slightly, bunching her face together in concentration, before finally saying with an air of self-assured wisdom, "You should drink some tea." She nodded, then, at her own statement, looking at her grandmother after doing so. "Right Granny? Cause a cup of tea makes things better."

The old woman softened slightly, gifting her granddaughter with a small smile, "You're quite right, Anna. Maybe you should listen to my little angel. After all, a good strong cuppa can never go wrong. Here," she added, pointing to a street not far from there, "Follow through there and turn at Cecil Ct., and then to your right you'll find a lovely little place, right beside a second hand bookshop.’' 

"No it isn't, Granny," giggled Anna, "It's beside the place beside the bookshop, with all the funny people that wear dresses with trousers." She then leaned in closer to Andrea and whispered as if sharing a big secret, "Once I saw a girl wearing stripes  _ and _ flowers."

"Anna, dear, we've talked about this. No imaginary places, all right? We don't want the nice girl to get lost." The woman scolded her grandchild, a bit sternly, but mostly fondly exasperated. "Sorry about the girl, she's just got such a grand imagination…"

"Oh, don't worry about it, it's fine!" Said Andrea, with a smile that was just a bit more genuine. ‘'Thank you for the advice. And have a good afternoon." she added.

"Of course, dear." The old woman returned, bidding her a pleasant day and strolling off with the bubbly toddler.

Andrea, with nothing better to do, followed the woman's directions. Eventually, she finds the place not beside the old bookshop, but beside an old looking pub. She decides then that she doesn't really want tea, but a good meal, as she hadn't had anything but coffee in hours. With this is mind, she forgoes the quaint little place and walks into the old pub. The barman takes one look at her and smiles, "New around here?" he asks, not recognizing her as one of the usual customers. Andrea only hums an affirmative with a nod, taking a seat. "Welcome to the Leaky Cauldron, then. Today's specials are written on the board over there." 

At first, Andrea thinks it's pretty neat. The name, the menu items like butterbeer and pumpkin juice, it was all a nice touch. She wondered why she hadn't seen this place online when she had been searching for places to visit, especially as she also specifically searched for Harry Potter related places. Then she saw something float. Various somethings. And a wand, and another, and a pointy hat. Suddenly she could see it everywhere, robes instead of jeans, candles and gas lamps instead of lightbulbs, moving pictures on the paper, and small impossibilities littering the place around her. She stood quickly with barely a muttered apology, exiting the place as fast as possible to look at the sign overhead. The Leaky Cauldron indeed. 

She felt an irrational urge to ask someone 'Are you seeing this?', to confirm what her eyes were telling her. Then she realized that though she was looking around at people in the street, not a single set of eyes darted in her direction. It was like she- like the Leaky Cauldron- didn't exist. Then she realized one more thing, as the relief she was hoping to find at the familiar sight of normalcy never arrived. The clothes, the cars, it was all wrong. They seemed like a scene out of a movie, from the fashion to the haircuts to the older model looking cars. There were no tourists taking selfies on their phones, but instead doing it on bigger, chunky cameras. There were no people walking with screens in their hands, but with newspapers and walkmans. There were no 'we have wifi' signs stuck on storefronts, only 'help wanted' signs and advertisements. She wasn't aware that her breath had quickened or that her heart was thundering in her ears, not until she started to feel like black was creeping into the corners of her vision. And then there was nothing more to tell, for Andrea fainted and knew no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again my little readers! I hope you enjoyed this second chapter since things are about to pick up the pace. 
> 
> Special thanks to Aaahlex, fireflyfall, and a guest for leaving kudos on the last chapter, really appreciate it, and thanks to everyone reading as well. Please leave any comments bellow and don't hesitate to tell me what you think. I will gratefully accept any criticism.
> 
> See you later,  
> -GMR


	3. Nor will I forget

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Andrea realizes some things.

When Andrea woke up, there was a stranger hovering over her, waving a stick of all things. A _ wand _ , she thought, ignoring the situation lack of anything approaching logic. As soon as the witch realized she was awake, Andrea was buried under an interminable onslaught of questions. Chief among them were: 'Where are your parents?' 'Why aren't you at school?' and 'What happened?'

Andrea could only truly answer one of those questions, and it was the one that least mattered, both to her and, she suspected, the witch.  _ A freaking witch from a fictional world.  _ And so, while she was still reeling from the events of the last several hours, she pasted on a smile and answered as best she could without being carted off to a psychiatrist.  _ Or a mind healer.  _

"Thank you for the worry madam, but I assure there's no need to worry. I'm not from Britain, you see, and school back home is not in session this time of year." Andrea said easily, as politely as possible, but that was as far as the truth would take her. "My parents and I are visiting, since we've never been to Britain before, but my mom was feeling a bit under the weather, so they stayed in today." 

The witch nodded pensively, "Yes, I thought your accent was a bit strange. Where did you say you were from?"

_ I didn't.  _ She wanted to say, but instead she smiled. For a second, she hesitated, worried about being caught in a lie. Andrea spared a moment to pray that the witch wasn't knowledgeable in magical geography and told her, "A small magical community in Latin America, though my accent is really a mix of all the different teachers I had in the language.’'  _ Or all the movies and t.v. series, really. Texas, New York, London, Sydney, Scotland and a hint of her native Spanish behind it all. _

"Yes, I can see why you wanted to come to Britain." The woman said, and Andrea really wanted to say something nasty at the look on her face. "We have one of the finest and oldest magical communities in the world. I'm sure it's been a... challenge, to find so many differences."  _ You have no idea. Though challenge is certainly not the word I would choose. _

"I'm sorry, it seems I've been terribly rude." Andrea suddenly said, the smile looking a bit more fixed than it had before. "Andrea Leon, at your service. May I ask for your name?"

"A pleasure." The woman said. "Cornelia Flint." 

The way she said her name bothered Andrea more than it should have. The woman obviously expected recognition at her name, and Andrea  _ did _ recognize the last name, if only because of Marcus Flint, but that was beside the point. Honestly, she should have guessed the woman was a pureblood. Though she  _ did  _ just help a complete stranger, so it wasn't like Andrea was going to hate her for being a little snobbish. So she answered, "The pleasure is all mine."

Mrs. Flint, however, was not distracted by this little charade, pushing to know what had happened. Andrea obviously couldn't tell her that she fainted because she had the sudden shock of being about 25 to 30 years in the past and probably in another world. Therefore, "It's nothing to worry about, really. I get dizzy sometimes, but I forgot my -potion back home and haven't bought any yet." She really hoped Mrs. Flint hadn't noticed her pause at  _ potion. _ But she was thankful at least that she remembered to say potion instead of pills.

"If you're certain?"

"I'm fine, but I thank you for your concern."

"All right." Mrs. Flint said, though she didn't seem entirely convinced. "Tom -the barman and innkeeper here- will be sending up something to eat soon. Don't worry about paying, I've got it covered. I'll even throw in the room if you need it tonight, but be sure to tell Tom if you do. And owl your parents, girl, you don't want them to worry." This last part she said sternly, wagging a finger as she spoke.

"Thank you Mrs. Flint." Andrea said as the witch left, and she truly was thankful, for she didn't know what would have happened to her otherwise, passed out in the street.

However, being alone did her no favors. Without the witch there to distract her, Andrea's mind raced through the events of the past day. Saying goodbye to her dad, boarding the plane, the accident, appearing in the subway, the cafe, the phone calls, the magic, the too-old cars and phones and fashion. It was a lot to take in, too much, even. 

She shouldn't just appear somewhere else after an accident, magic wasn't supposed to exist, and phone numbers were supposed to work. Her family was supposed to answer. Her mum and dad were supposed to help her. Except that now there was magic and her family was nowhere to be found. 

Just the thought of it made her heart beat faster, and louder to her ears. It made her breath catch in her throat and her thoughts stutter to a halt. It scared her. She was so  _ terrified _ of what the lack of contact could mean. Because as much as she liked to think of herself as independent, she wasn't ready to leave her family behind. She couldn't. No matter how she looked at it, how much she knew she could do and learn to do what she couldn't, she couldn't see a way to succeed at anything without the people she loved. She knew that if she lost her family, her friends, her  _ world,  _ she might very well break. And so there was only one thing she could allow herself to do: fix it. She needed to find her family, one way or another.

Andrea was a teenager, she wasn't professionally trained at anything nor could she claim to have a lot of experience with life in general. She could, however, exploit any resources available to her. This lead her to conclude that she needed more information. She had to learn  _ what _ happened,  _ why _ , and  _ how _ , at the very least, if she wanted to undo it. But first, she needed to know with absolute certainty that she could do it, because the moment she gave up, it would all crash down. She needed to drown out the voice inside her that kept screaming:  _I'm just a kid._

Later, she would look back at this moment with a strange sort of sorrow, perhaps even wistfulness, but that time was still ages away. For now, she staggered out of her room as well as one could when faced with an impossible situation that needs a solution. She sat at a table, alone, and ate the food that Tom gave her as he saw her appear. The first few bites tasted like ash. Try as she might, she couldn't seem to be enjoy it. She couldn't help but wish it all away for a single bite of one of her mom's home cooked meals. It was about then that it hit her, like a hammer to the chest. Without her mom, there was no one to cook for her. Without her dad, there was no one to pay for her. Without her parents, she had no money, no house, no food. If she didn't find a way to support herself, then she'd be dead long before she found them. 

She had no delusions of this quest being a matter of hours. She might have loved fantasy and fairy tales, but she had always been a bit of a realist when it came to her own life. She knew it might be days, weeks, months even. She didn't want to think that it could take longer than that.

By that point, however, it would be irrelevant. She wouldn't last months without food, especially not without shelter. She realized that there would be no more well-meaning witches to pay for a meal and a room. That she had tonight and then uncertainty. It was scary too, she realized, but in a different way. It was survival. And this was a last meal, she realized, the last one to be given to her and not earned by herself. Suddenly, she wasn't feeling so hungry anymore. It was illogical and, frankly, counterproductive to ignore a free meal, but she found herself staring at it instead. It was only the thought that she might not get to eat like this for some time that made her force herself through it. Slowly, she worked through her food, pushing herself to finish even the last crumb. When she was done, she found herself once again staring at her plate, only this time she wondered how often she would be looking at an empty plate instead of a full one.

A few minutes passed, and eventually, she managed to shake off the fear of hunger and homelessness. What had once brought her problems in school, her terrible habit of procrastinating, was useful for once, in that she would be able to ignore her worries until it was time to act. She took her worries, her fears, and locked them away the way she did when the workload got too heavy and stress gnawed at her mind. She ignored the voice telling her not to do it, screaming at her to deal with it  _ now  _ instead of later. But she knew that her mind could be her greatest enemy, that her fear would freeze her up and her panic would bring mistakes. For now, she pushed everything away but the next step. She needed information, and no place was better for it than a city teeming with people. 

"Tom, I'll take the room, please, but I'm going out for a while first. Thank you for the food, it was delicious." She said with a smile, and walked out into the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to xXDNHXx, your comment made my day. Also, a big thank you to everyone who is reading my story. I hope you're enjoying it.
> 
> Don't be afraid to tell me what you think, any criticism is highly appreciated. 
> 
> See you later,  
> -GMR


End file.
